Webp image format

[blamingas]

Hello. I know "webp" is the best compressing method for large images, it allows to keep the images very lite while the quality remains very good.
In September 2020 Safari finally started to support webp (it was the only browser staying away from this format), so now all browsers are supporting it.
Is it possible to use "webp" image format in Webrotate? That would revolutionary change the loading speed of spin images. I see SpotEditor doesn't have it in Publish menu. What if I manually add .webp images instead .jpg in the folder and replace these extensions in xml file - will it work? Thanks

 

[WebSupport]

Hi, thanks for this message.

Yes, indeed we were and still waiting for Safari :mrgreen: reason we're still waiting is because the webp support in Safari is only available in Bug Sur when it comes to desktop browsers which means that if we add webp support we would still have to duplicate the images to create a backup set with jpgs, making publishing quite slow.

Do you think it's a valid concern?

 

[blamingas]

Thank you for your reply. I made some research too and found that, really, the only browser which still does not support webp format properly is older versions of Safari (before Big Sur on MacOS as you said, and below 14 vr. of iOS). In fact I don't see a problem in this. I'm already using webp as my Webrotate360 images which I'm manually converting after the project has been rendered, and also renaming jpg to webp in the xml - file. (Also made some tweaks on my server to let old-version users of Safari see jpgs). Yes, there are couple inconveninces like storing two image formats at the server as well as manual renaming jpg to webp at Webrotate xml file. But comparing to how versatile spin-images become at the user's end and looking on load speed improvement, I found it is definitely worth it.
And yes, my question on the beginning of this thread is no longer actual. I see that the renaming image format in Webrotate xml-file is not a big deal, but if you would add this funtion in SpotEditor this may confuse your customers, because having two image formats after the rendering still requires additional tweaks on the server.
Anyway, thank you for your awesome product and support!